This invention relates to a radiographic imaging system and a radiographic imaging method that can image a subject such as an examinee or a patient with an upright position by the use of a partition, and more particularly, to a radiographic imaging system and a radiographic imaging method that can obtain an appropriate image even when a partition is tilted when imaging a subject with an upright position by the use of the partition.
Recently, radiographic imaging systems have been used in various fields such as medical diagnostic images or industrial nondestructive inspections. In some radiographic imaging systems, a flat panel detector (hereinafter, referred to as an FPD) converting radiation into an electrical signal is used as a radiation detector detecting radiation such as X-rays, α rays, β rays, γ rays, electron beams, or ultraviolet rays transmitted through a subject.
In the radiographic imaging systems employing the FPD, a subject is irradiated with radiation from a radiation source, the radiation transmitted through the subject is converted into electrical signals by the FPD, and the electrical signals corresponding to image data of the subject are read from the FPD to generate a radiographic image.
For example, the FPD is classified into two schemes of a direct scheme of collecting electron-hole pairs emitted from a photoconductive film in response to incidence of radiation and reading electrical signals, that is, directly converting the radiation into the electrical signals, and an indirect scheme of including a fluorescent layer (scintillator layer) formed of a fluorescent substance emitting light (fluorescing) in response to incidence of radiation, converting the radiation into visible rays through the use of the fluorescent layer, and reading the visible rays through the use of a photoelectric conversion device, that is, converting the radiations into the electrical signals via the visible rays. The photoconductive film is formed of amorphous selenium or the like.
Currently, the FPDs generally only have a size of about 43×43 cm. Accordingly, a long-area radiographic image such as a radiographic image of the whole area of a spine (whole spine) or the whole area of legs (whole legs) cannot be captured by a single imaging.
In the radiographic imaging system according to the related art capturing a radiographic image of a long area of the whole area of a spine (whole spine) or the whole area of legs (whole legs) by the use of the FPD, a partition is disposed between a patient and the FPD supported by an upright stand so as to achieve safe protection and to capture an image up to the heels when operating long length radiography. The patient is made to stand upright at a predetermined position by the partition, the imaging is performed while causing the FPD to sequentially move from above, and plural captured images are joined and synthesized into a long image (see JP 2009-240681 A).